alt Hacker NewsI think that happens when as a German you're used to using the Plusquamperfekt which is a somewhat unique tense that's allowed to be used in all past tenses.
It allows you to not having to define the point in time and neither the frame of the timespan's points in time.
Some languages allow to use that type of tense and it's somewhat a language gap I suppose. I have no idea what other languages or proto languages allow that tense though, but I've seen some Slavic and maybe Finnish(?) natives use that tense in English, too.
Maybe someone more elaborate in these matters has better examples?